Crime and punishment

A Black Market camera seller

Second World War

Criminals of the Blitz: how the German bombings created a golden age of crime

PincushionMuseumofLondon-403da74

In pictures: objects of crime

The Victorians' grisly fascination with murder. (Illustration by Ben Jones for BBC History Magazine)

The Victorians’ grisly fascination with murder

L0030628 Bertillon, Instructions Signaletiques Alb

In pictures: the anatomy of crime

The Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Winchilsea in a duel at Battersea Fields. (Culture Club/Getty Images)

Pistols at dawn: duelling in the Victorian age

Victorian-deaths-2-1b1e478

9 astonishing deaths reported in Victorian newspapers

Photo of Chelsea Pensioners

Q&A Could you really once be hanged for impersonating a Chelsea Pensioner?

Incent's House as it stands today on the Berkhamsted High Street. (Creative Commons)

The hunt for the Tudor hitman

Biggs-9a478c5

Great Train Robbery’s Ronnie Biggs dies

A policeman feels the full force of a blast in this illustration – from the 7 June 1884 issue of 'The Illustrated Police News' – depicting a Fenian attack on Scotland Yard. The Fenians' dynamite campaign of the early 1880s provoked a radical response from the British government. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Victorian war on terror

Screen-Shot-2013-11-14-at-16.05.10-57914a8

Video: Tracy Borman on the Witches of Belvoir

Beaumaris Gaol, Anglesey, Wales. The prison could accommodate up to 30 inmates under the so-called 'silent system', in which inmates slept in separate cells at night but worked and attended chapels and classes together during the day. (Ashley Cooper via Getty Images)

History Explorer: 19th-century prison reform

PoliceFront-8a1ba2b

‘Britain needs police museum’ says crime historian

Woodcut Of A English Witch Hanging

Witches in the dock: 10 of Britain’s most infamous witch trials

The three Kenyans who were tortured by British forces in the 1950s are joined by supporters at a demonstration outside the Royal Courts of Justice. (BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images)

History on trial